Authors note: this story occurs after both Thor's defeat of the Tyrant/Galactus entity and the ignominious departure of the Celestial race to their home dimension, but well before Thor's defeat of the Son of Thanos

New Asgard

Some time in the Future

It came to pass that
Prince Magni had become utterly bored with his supposedly idyllic
existence in New Asgard. The perfection and harmony that Lord Thor
had achieved on Earth and it's Moon, on the Martian Colony, on
Continental Asgard and some other more recent acquisitions had left
Magni with no challenges.

Lord Thor and the
forces supporting his reign had become so powerful that there was no
conceivable threat to his present dominions from any source
whatsoever. The very name of Lord Thor was spoken of with total
respect in all corners of our Universe. This is not to say though,
that there were those prepared to do his offspring harm should such
an opportunity arise.

Thus it was that
with Thor's blessing Magni decided to venture out into the larger
cosmos in search of knowledge and adventure (as both his father and
his grandfather as younger men had once done). There was also a more
practical side to this as Lord Thor had charged Magni, whilst
enjoying himself, to also be on the look-out for potential planetary
systems that might one day be colonised by those of Earth/Asgard.

Thor had viewed a
number of potential systems and even teleported there for a brief
look but there had not been time for any detailed type of survey. Magni would not however be alone. Accompanying him in a great Viking
longboat, named the Lady Sif, would be Thialfi with whom Magni had
established a great friendship and a full dozen of New Asgard's
young and hardy warriors.

The resemblance
between the Lady Sif and a Viking Longboat of old ended at the purely
appearances level. The great ship was force field protected against
the extremes of the cosmos and contained mystically an unlimited
supply of breathable air. It was also capable of both
interdimensional travel and speeds far beyond that of light.
Furthermore every one of the accompanying warriors had a special
power of some sort. Thialfi had his great speed and Thiemden – son
of Heimdall had his father's vast sight, sound and other sensory
capabilities. Among Magni's other companions was a healer and at
least one other warrior able to teleport interdimensionally. Yet
others had a variety of mystic capabilities offensive and defensive.
As a still further precaution the inert Destroyer armour had been
taken along, with a view to its being used by Thialfi if necessary.

Prince Magni was
essentially a physical person relying on his great strength and
durability ( this was probably greater than that of almost any other
mystically unassisted purely physical being anywhere in the
Multiverse). Still his mother had chosen to teach him some of her
mystic ways. Also he had finally taken possession of the great hammer
of Thor, now renamed the hammer of Magni. Thor had returned the time
travel properties of the great hammer and strengthened its capacity
to absorb and retain energy such that a godblast from Magni would be
far greater than Thor's godblast which millennia ago once forced
the retreat of the great Galactus and even gave pause to Mighty
Exitar. One further addition had been made - through the hammer -
Magni could if necessary mystically augment both his size and
strength.

Why this last
enchantment was added was most curious, few if any beings could
physically match Magni's strength and it seemed in some ways like
overkill, yet perhaps Lord Thor in his great wisdom had his reasons. In short Magni and his companions seemed generally well equipped to
deal with almost anything they might face out in the cosmos.
Furthermore Magni would generally be under observation (especially
from his mother the Enchantress),from New Asgard, though Lord Thor
had decided that he would only ever intervene if his son faced a
threat sufficient to seriously endanger his life. For any lesser
threats Prince Magni would have to rely on the resources at his
immediate disposal.

Thus did Magni and
his comrades set forth teleporting close to a little known and
distant Galaxy then allowing Heimdall's son to chart a course for
the first of the favourable worlds that Lord Thor had detected. Over
the coming days, weeks and months Prince Magni and his band moved
from one seemingly Earthlike world to another. Each world seeming
even more verdant than the last. Yet in truth each had been seeded
with something that would set in place a process of decay that would
eventually reduce the world to lifelessness ( a sort of reverse
terra-forming). At first Magni had thought this just some accident of
nature, but a pattern began to emerge – a malevolent intelligence
had almost certainly been at work here.

Magni had also been
supplied with the means to audio-visually contact new Asgard should
the circumstances warrant and after the first few visits to the
Earthlike worlds, he reported his early findings back to Lord Thor.
Thor was concerned but at this point not overly so. As time
progressed both Thor and Amora followed their offspring's progress
less regularly, Thor because of pressing matters of State and Amora
because of "dalliances" behind Lord Thors back.

At the point where it
became obvious that there was a clear pattern of malevolence to the
long term lifelessness seeding of these worlds Prince Magni sought
again to contact New Asgard and report - to his great surprise he was
unable to do so. He then decided to use his hammers teleportation
capabilities to return to Asgard and report directly. To his even
greater surprise the hammer failed him as did the teleportation
capabilities of the Lady Sif longboat and one of his companions who
also had this capability.

For the time being
and for whatever reason Magni and his companions were limited to the
approx 3 X light speed capability of the Lady Sif. Magni did not as
yet propose to test his hammers time travel capabilities. While this
was clearly cause for great concern, still Magni knew that Lord Thor
watched over him from Asgard and that ultimately his father would
intervene, perhaps even coming here himself.

Thus Magni's
explorations continued. It was during a respite on yet another of
these "infected" Earthlike worlds that the attack came. Magni had
briefly moved away from his comrades in a particularly idyllic
waterfall setting to ponder their future actions when out of a
dimensional portal his comrades experienced a surprise attack from a
fearsome assemblage of some of the Universes most malevolent
characters. This included the former heralds of Galactus – Terrax
and Morg, Perrikus of the Dark Gods and other equally fearsome yet
unknown entities.

With Magni temporarily
absent Thor's companions were overwhelmed and left either slain or
severely injured, all except for Thialfi who entered the Destroyer
armour and completed disintegrated Terrax, Perrikus and most of the
other attackers. As Magni came running he saw the Thialfi Destroyer
engaging a Morg (apparently with waters of life) who had been on the
edge of the Destroyers visor disintegration blast. A vicious leer
appeared on Morg's face as he ignored the Thialfi Destroyer and
moved to engage Magni. For whatever reason Morg had assumed that
Magni was of comparable strength and capabilities to the Thor before
Odin's death.

What a surprise
Morg received when as he closed with Magni and discovered Magni's
true strength and durability. Desirous of a quick victory Magni
knocked Morg aside as if he were a puppet and then completely
destroyed him with a very short sharp low intensity "godblast". As Magni and the Thialfi Destroyer surveyed the scene of carnage and
looked to see what could be done for their wounded comrades– they
heard suddenly the most fearsome and bone chilling laughter they had
ever known. Accompanying the Morg/Terrax/Perrikus group had been the
son of Tyrant. Not only the most fearsome looking entity imaginable
but one bent on revenge for Lord Thor's destruction of his father.

By now the energies
had again built up around the Thailfi/Destroyer's visor and
realising that this was not an entity to be toyed with Prince Magni
and the Thialfi Destroyer attacked the sone of Tyrant in Unison. The
Thialfi Destroyer with a disintegrator beam and Magni with a much
more powerful godblast. For all his fearsomeness the son of Tyrant
was destroyed in a mere moment. Even his father would have been
unlikely to survive such an assault.

Then Prince Magni
and Thialfi attended to their wounded (the healer among them had not
been to badly injured and was assisting). Magni paused to think who
could have been behind these attacks, was even the son of Tyrant just
the agent of a greater force ?. Something powerful enough to prevent
his communication with and teleportation back to New Asgard had been
at work. It did seem likely that even the son of Tyrant had this
power. As the weary band gathered itself, the true architect of
their misfortunes became evident, they all looked to the sky to see
levitating before them a huge Exitar class Celestial. As the entire
Celestial race had some years ago departed for their ancestral home
in a distant dimension, this entity had to be some kind of rogue
Celestial back for revenge on the humiliation of his race by Lord
Thor just as the son of Tyrant had sought revenge.

In truth as the
Celestials tended to specialise – Arishem the Judge, Ziran the
Tester, Exitar the Exterminator, this rogue Celestial was actually
Leandaar the Destroyer – the very physically strongest of all the
Celestial race. What a test indeed for great Magni !

Magni
knew immediately what he had to do and using his hammers powers
mystically increased his size to the 20,000 feet of an Exitar Class
Celestial. This would truly be the physical clash of titans to end
all physical clashes of titans. Levitating to meet Leandaar the two
titans moved out into space and engaged in the greatest "slugfest"
ever seen and indeed initially the honours seemed roughly even as
every huge planet shattering blow landed.

Whether or not
Prince Magni could have beaten the rogue Celestial at this present
strength level became however somewhat problematic. In looking back
at his comrades Magni found his rage grow and he entered a true state
of "warrior's madness". At this strength level there was
nothing to gainsay him and he began to pummel the Exitar Class rogue
Celestial with increasing savagery. Indeed it was no longer a contest
as great Magni pummelled Leandaar into silence and submission. Still
the pummelling continued – the Celestial armour was smashed into
fragments and still Magni kept pummelling.Finally as he came out
of the warrior's madness Magni took stock and indeed there was
nothing left of the rogue Celestial than an oozing mass of jelly.

Almost (though not
completely) ashamed of his actions Magni returned to his normal 6
feet 10 inches and to his comrades and contacted Asgard to report.
Lord Thor immediately joined them and immediately reversed the
effects of the seeds of eventual lifelessness sowed by the rogue
Celestial.

In years to come
these verdant worlds in this distant Galaxy would make excellent
colonies for the Earth's continuing expanding population.

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